And on the Fourth Day, We Were Done with Maintenance for Another Five Years
Ding Dong! Our doorbell needed a fresh coat of paint, too.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since we built Our Little House, but it’s true. Time flies when you’re having fun and even when you’re not!
It’s also been 5 years since completing The Belle Writer’s Studio.
Our buildings don’t require much maintenance, and that’s how we like it. Part of the benefit of having a small home is that they don’t require a lot of work, inside or out.
When we built both buildings, my first choice would have been a log cabin, my second choice would have been to put on cedar siding. But those options were both cost prohibitive.
I still have to paint the candle holder again, but it will look brand new when finished.
Our builder told us that we shouldn’t go with either steel or aluminum siding here in the woods. We decided to go with T11 wood siding and stain it a cedar color. We always had good luck with Behr brand on our deck in the city, and it did not disappoint here on the house and studio.
The house, which is partially covered from the sun by trees, lasted until this year. The side that faces west on the studio also had to be done this year.
The last time Dale painted the house in the city, I remember it taking about 3 weekends. It was 1,100 square foot inside and had some pretty high points.
This year, when Dale set out to stain the west side of the studio and 3 sides of the house (the side with the covered front porch still didn’t need it), it took him 3 evenings after work.
We also took down the décor and our door bell from the house and repainted some of it, as it had all faded as well. You can see from the photo on our Living Large Facebook page that the décor needed some freshening up.
Now that the new stain is on, the rest of the summer is ours to enjoy!
How long does it take to paint the outside of your home?
We have cedar siding on our cabin. It’s 9 years old and we had a problem with some of the boards on one side. Apparently they weren’t dry enough when they were installed and they shrunk and warped. In our dry climate that doesn’t happen much! Ha! We replaced them. But I’ve fallen madly in love with the houses Reclaimed Spaces builds. They use a combo of cedar and corrugated metal. I told my hubby if we have any more issues I would like to mix it up with some metal!
That sounds like a great plan, Sue. Sorry you had such trouble. I hope the problems are over with now, though, and you won’t have to go to anything else.
We just sided our house, but we do need to seal the deck every year. And we have front porch railings that need to be painted this year I think. We also installed those gutters that have the mesh on top, so we don’t have to climb up and empty those out. Reducing outdoor maintenance makes life much easier.
Wondering why you have to seal the deck every year? We do ours about once every 3 and that’s with a lot of dogs scratching it up. Ours needs to be done this year, too. Probably in the fall.
Lovely!
Many things about my plan to live aboard a boat would be simpler–less to own, less to store. But maintenance isn’t one of them. It gives me pause when I think about the simplicity of staining a small house every 5 years instead of varnishing teak every year and scraping barnacles every month. 🙂
Oh, gosh. I knew having a boat was a lot of work, I didn’t think about scarping varnishing so often! That would give me pause, too. 🙂
I just had new siding put on my little house. It took them 2 days to paint. I was going to paint it myself, but at 60+ and up there all alone, I thought being up on a ladder painting was probably not a good idea. Mind works great, body no so much LOL Looks so good. The old shingle siding had been up for 50 years. I’m not looking forward to painting my city house, which is next, looking forward to moving to our little house soon.
I know. I sometimes wish we still had our house in the city to go back to when we wanted, but then i think of the maintenance that would create. If we ever get to that point financially, maybe we can buy a no maintenance condo in the city, LOL!
I have metal siding in my 29X19 exterior. I am thinking I might paint soon, but for now I just Takewash it once in awhile, takes only an hour to wash.
Small homes are great for maintenance anyway and i love anything that will make it even easier.